From the Websites

David L. Ulin, book editor of the Los Angeles Times, looks at rereading a novel after many years and how such an exercise can bring new revelations about its depth and intent. Alas, disappointments also can ensue.

On December 8, 2007, Doris Lessing, aged 88, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. In her acceptance speech she recalls her childhood in Africa and laments that children in Zimbabwe are starving for knowledge, while those in more privileged countries shun reading for the inanities of the age of the Internet.

In The Telegraph, A.S.Byatt admits that she had never been able to read Agatha Christie but explains why she loves the timeless detective fiction of Margery Allingham.